September 6, 2007

Matthew Macon was arraigned today on one murder charge and the assault of the unidentified woman that were part of the string of victims from a series of killings in August. And still, no freakin’ information was released one way or the other to lend any credence to the charges they have pending or whether or not they even have the right guy.

Macon’s attorney, Mike O’Briant requested and was granted a gag order on the whole case, saying that it wouldn’t be ethical to comment on his client’s guilt or innocence.

Ok, tantrum time. First, check out this article.

The released his juvenile records that show that at 14 he became a registered sex offender, LSJ quoted court record. Question… *ahem* At what point did it become ok to release juvenile records to the press? And, is it even legal to print such things? Is this hearsay because the direct quote from the Court’s notes sure make it look like it’s not hearsay. And, here’s where I ask again, DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT GUY??? Because if we do, then it seems like the facts of the cases at hand would be making their way to the surface, instead of drudging up past crap we’re not even supposed to see, that the guy has already served his time for and that happened to take place over a decade ago.

It sort of feels like we’re grasping at straws for answers. I ask you, Dear Reader’s do you think maybe Mr. Matthew Macon drew the short one?

The preliminary hearing is set for October 30th. And again, if the prosecution is so sure that they have the right guy why so long out? If this is as cut and dried as they are alluding to, why did it take six deaths before he was caught, and why aren’t we getting any sense whatsoever of comfort that they have the right person?

If you need examples of series killers relocating to continue their spree, see Ted Bundy. If they’re wrong, do we really want to wait until October 30th almost two whole months away before any facts whatsoever are released? What if they’re wrong?

I’ve heard rumor of confessions. Since we’re so hellbent on drudging up Mr. Macon’s past, I’m going to stretch out on my little limb here and suggest that perhaps the man suffers from some sort of mental abnormality. And while we’re stretching, is it really so far fetched to believe he might have been coerced into a confession? If you want examples of false confessions or coerced confessions, just type that very phrase into Google. You’ll be inundated with reading material for years.

Question what you’re demanded to believe, people. This is getting ridiculous!

There’s a new article this morning in the Lansing State Journal has an article expressing the same thoughts/sentiments as me and my close friends here in Lansing have been feeling. Check it out HERE.

I wrote a post about a week ago that you can visit HERE, regarding the discrepancies in the sketch. Some of the people in the LSJ message boards are throwing the fit of all fits regarding the sketch and saying that we are all nuts. My question to those people is: Do you guys blindly follow, never stopping to ask WHY you are told to believe something? Expand your brain cells. Extra caution can’t hurt here. I’m pleased that you have so much faith in our system that you’ll take their orders to “breathe easy”, but I don’t share it with you. I’m not “breathing easy”, and I’m not going to believe something without evidence or even a spoken reason just because our officials say to.

In any other serial murder case where the suspect’s been arrested, what do you hear? “So and so was caught red-handed with murder weapon”, “DNA matches So and So in Serial Killer case”, SOMETHING. The point here is they’ve given us nothing to go on to cause us to believe they’ve got the right guy. Instead, they’ve left us to speculate with the only evidence we have, which is a witness account, sketched in a composite drawing by one of our 7 Michigan State Police Forensic Artists.

Those artists are phenomenal. I know one of them personally. I’ve worked with her on other cases before. If you get a chance, Google Sarah Foster, Michigan State Police and see what comes up. You’ll even find comparisons between drawing/actual suspect for some of the cases if you look hard enough.

If it turns out the evidence is overwhelming in this case and Matthew Macon is the guy, awesome. I’m all for tearing him apart and placing him in the harshest conditions Michigan has to offer. But, let us not try him for his past crimes. He’s served his time for those. Let’s concentrate on whether or not he really is the person on a blitz style serial murder spree. Because if he’s not, then our actual killer – is out there, very intelligently keeping his cool, and laughing his tush off at the incompetence and blind faith.

This is a very, very interesting story of the split decisions we make, and how they can effect us for the whole rest of our lives. I thought about re-telling the story with my cynical twist, but JoAnn Loviglio does a spectacular job of telling you already. Why re-invent the wheel? Check out her story HERE and then come back for discussion…

What do we think of this? Personally, I guess I’d want to meet this fella that originally shot Officer Walter T. Barclay. Because to get a feel for whether or not William J. Barnes deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his life for something he’s spent an awful lot of time in prison for already, I’d need to get to know the man. Is he a different person? JoAnn doesn’t seem to think so, really. She tells us in her story that he had several escape attempts and spent a lot of his time in solitary confinement. That doesn’t really lend credence to him learning the error of his ways and show us his awesome rehabilitation efforts.

For those who didn’t go read, the basic gist of the story is this: (before I tell you, I really recommend you go read it. It’s a very interesting and complex story of which you will not get all the details here) Officer Barclay responded to a burglary call in 1966. At that call, Barnes shot him and paralyzed him. Barnes went to prison and served his time for attempted murder. He was paroled and violated, paroled and violated, and never really seemed to care one way or the other how his actions effect any one else.

But, Walter died on August 19th this year. And, as a result, one excited little prosecutor has filed murder charges against William Barnes. Joann’s article states that Prosecutor Abraham said, “I support and applaud people who turn their lives around, but that doesn’t mean I forgive them for what they do and just write it off.”

I’m having a tough time forming an opinion on this. On one hand, I feel like the man served his time, and while it’s a terrible tragedy that Walter suffered throughout his life, that Brown served the time.

You get one or the other. You can’t get attempted murder AND murder charges. If you kill someone, you don’t get additionally slammed with attempted murder, right? There seems to be something wrong here. If they do truly follow through with this and they get a conviction for murder, I would think that at the very least he’d get time served for the attempted murder conviction.

But, what’s time served on a life sentence? That is exactly what he’ll get if convicted. That time served is, as my late mother would say “About as useful as tits on a boar hog”.

So, is this convict, who’s served his time, and is working his minimum wage job and doing what he’s got to do to get by…is he worth fighting for? Because this is one of those cases to watch. If this overzealous prosecutor gets away with these charges, then this will be one that’s going to be used as reference in the future. It will be a bit of history that will rear it’s ugly head anytime someone pisses off the right person in the prosecutors chair for years to come.

And, what do the victims families think in this case? Are they for putting this guy away?

I guess, I question really, who this guy is as a person. I want to know what he’s about. Because it seems awfully harsh to let a man think he’s served his time and is free and clear on a crime committed 41 years ago, only to bring them back again. Link the evidence all you want to our victim’s death. But, I just feel like this is wrong.

Dude and Dude’s buddy want beer. Dude and Dude’s buddy are out of money. Dude and Dude’s buddy decide that the way around this problem is to go shoplift some. With an infallible distraction method, watch THIS VIDEO and see the jubilant shoplifters in action!

Ok. I know I shouldn’t swear. But, read this BULLSHIT and then come back for discussion.

This guy is a blatant example of what specifically is wrong with our justice system. It relies on human nature for all of it to work, instead of a check/balance system. Thankfully, this was caught. Kudos to the attorneys that figured it out and succeeded in making a case against him.

Basically, if you didn’t read the link, Nifong collaborated with the lab agency to produce records that failed to show that DNA evidence excluded the three suspects that they had on trial. In short, he was so gung-ho about winning the case, that he supressed evidence that would free the innocent men. As a result he was disbarred, and brought up on criminal charges. My problem is that he got one day in jail. He’s due to report on September 7th, 2007 for his day in jail.

A day? A DAY? How many days would those three men have served had he gotten away with his little plan? Let’s find that out, and that’s how long he should spend there. Times two.

Just for good measure, I found another picture of alleged serial killer, Matthew Macon, the suspect Lansing police have taken into custody. Again, please compare the two real pictures, the newest (on the right) was taken last year.

September 1, 2007

Please read this article first, and then you’re welcome to come join me for a temper tantrum…

Alright, first of all, it was civilians that got the most done with the Katrina situation. Civilians. With 9/11, it was the collective effort of law enforcement, fire departments and civilians. While I agree that it’s a clusterhumped mess at the get go at any given situation, there is a logical way to handle volunteer efforts and to have them co-exist with law enforcement efforts. It’s called dispatch.

I know this because not only am I a BTR workaholic, but I’m also the founder of Missing You Foundation, Michigan’s only missing persons organization. A much smaller-scale example is the Todd Geib search that happened in Muskegon County after Todd went missing from a party one summer night.

From the day I was asked to participate in the case, (two days in), we were able to pull together 1500 volunteers, atvs, boats, helicopters, ground pounders, dogs etc. We had law enforcement there, they let me do my job, yet they still assisted with giving us trained officers to lead some of our teams. We utilized our first responders as team leaders. The school system gave me the use of their busses. Media worked hand in hand. It was the best organized search in the history of Michigan, and I can proudly say that I was at the head of it.

And guess what? The majority of those volunteers were civilians with no training but awesome hearts. To discount those hands and hearts and to throw away that workforce when you need them is a mistake. A big one.

If they can’t get an able bodied person into a leadership position to create a dispatch network and analyze the problem, then we need to hang it up and fix our whole system. If I can do it with 1500 volunteers on two days notice, then we can do it on a much higher scale with many more people. Use the trained to lead the untrained. Use the knowledgable to train the unknowledgable.

But for us to stand by and just not do anything when we are here and able to help, takes away who we are as people and as a nation. We are America. And, we take care of our own. Good luck telling us we can’t. You’ll find yourself in a war of the people vs. the government.

And as for the comment about this being a Bush Administration suggestion…well doesn’t that just figure. Aren’t y’all the same geniuses that put Michael Brown in as the head of FEMA? Well…no WONDER you think civilian help can’t work. FEMA was supposed to lead them. Remember his resignation? Remember why he damn near caused the breakdown of what potentially is our most important organization in the US? Yeah. Look THAT up.